T24 Foreign News
According to the latest research published in the London-based weekly scientific research journal Nature, mRNA vaccines developed to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic can increase the average survival time in certain cancer patients by 75 percent. If this finding is confirmed in other studies, there may be a revolutionary development in cancer treatment.
Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna developed mRNA COVID vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic and thus managed to provide immunity to COVID disease in millions of people.
mRNA vaccines are based on effectively stimulating the immune system for a certain period of time and thus developing immunity against the disease.
How new research links cancer and COVID-19 vaccines
Nature magazine published a new study showing that these vaccines reduce the risk of death in cancer patients by 75 percent.
According to the article published in the journal Nature, researchers in the USA examined the medical records of stage 3 and stage 4 lung cancer patients treated at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center between 2015 and 2022.
180 of these patients had received the Pfizer or Moderna brand Covid mRNA vaccine within 100 days of starting immunotherapy treatment. Researchers compared these patients with 704 patients who received the same drugs but did not receive the Covid vaccine.
Striking results were achieved after controlling for age, disease severity, and other confounding factors.
Vaccinated patients live an average of 37.3 months; In the unvaccinated group, this period was measured as 20.6 months.
Three years after starting treatment, 55.7 percent of vaccinated patients were alive, compared to 30.8 percent of unvaccinated patients.
Researchers state that mRNA vaccines act like a flare and activate immune cells in the body. This doesn’t directly target cancer, but it does make the immune system more alert and responsive.
What role might COVID vaccines play in cancer treatment?
Cancer occurs as a result of uncontrolled growth and division of normal cells in the body, resulting in certain mutations caused by tobacco, radiation, inherited genetic factors or environmental exposure.
Although our immune system recognizes foreign substances such as viruses and bacteria that enter our body very well, since cancerous cells are a part of our body, it is difficult for our immune system to distinguish them from healthy cells.
Doctors have several options for treating cancer. Generally, surgery or radiotherapy is applied first. Thus, cancerous cells are either removed from their location or targeted and destroyed.
In cases where cancer has spread, chemotherapy is used. Chemotherapy drugs target rapidly dividing cells to stop the growth of tumors, but this causes serious harm to the body because it also kills healthy cells.
Immunotherapy, on the other hand, prepares the immune system to attack only cancer cells. Most research efforts in this area are focused on developing targeted vaccines and drugs for specific types of cancer. This means a long and expensive testing process.
However, mRNA vaccines generally activate the immune system, which helps the body fight cancer cells.
It could be revolutionary
Scientists think that if the latest findings are confirmed by other studies, this could provide a revolutionary development in cancer treatment.
Oncologist and study co-author Dr. Elias Sayour ,“We can design an even better vaccine to stimulate and reset the immune response, which could be a universal, ready-made cancer vaccine for all patients.” he says.
Because COVID mRNA vaccines have already been tested for safety in millions of people, researchers think there may be an opportunity to repurpose these vaccines alongside traditional cancer treatments as a low-risk, inexpensive way to boost the immune system.
